First Steps
by Blue Paper Plane
Summary: This fanfic is about Allen's past. It includes his story about how Mana Walker died and how he tried to make him an Akuma. Plz review! My first fanfic, so it's not so great. Feel free to critique.
1. Mana

1. Mana

"Mana? Can we get some food soon? Please?" seven-year-old Allen Walker inquired to his adoptive father, Mana Walker as they sauntered hand-in-hand on the dirt road approaching the large capital city of London. His grey-blue eyes were earnest and wide. "I'm really, really hungry. So, so hungry I could eat thiiissss muuuch!" Allen spread his arms as far apart as he could reach and grinned.

Mana laughed wholeheartedly. "But don't you always eat that much, Allen?" He smoothed over the boy's longish mass of unkempt brown hair.

"Well . . . yes," Allen admitted. Then his cute, childish features lit up. "It's always better when you eat with me, Mana! Can you do that? Tonight?"

Mana scratched his forehead. "I'm not sure, Allen. Practice runs late tonight." Mana was a traveling clown. He had a show almost every night, so he rarely had time to eat a meal with his son.

In truth, Mana didn't enjoy his silly career, not especially. However, the pay was fair, and he never got the same thrill of filling the hearts of foolish children with joy. It made the dark and dreary Earth seem less gloomy, having children with gay and innocent souls throughout it. Just like Allen, who he knew must fullfill his duty to God and become, someday, one of them. An-

"Mana!" Allen called.

Mana turned around. There was Allen, fallen on the road behind him. Mana had been lost in thought and hadn't noticed the child stumble.

"Get up, Allen. Keep walking."

"O- okay," Allen said, scrambling to his feet. He was brushing off his knees when he heard rattling above him. He looked up in time to see a carrige rushing toward him.

"ALLEN!" He heard Mana yell. He couldn't move. He was imobile, frozen in place by the means of fear.

The veichle didn't halt.

Before he could emit a scream, Allen felt hands on his back, forcing him off the road. His body hit the roadside, and he cried out in alarm, but he wasn't severely injured. He was alive, panting, hearing, seeing.

As for Mana . . .

"MANA!!" Allen shouted. He ran to Mana's side. Mana lay sprawled, a pool of blood forming around him.

"MANA!"

"Uh . . . Allen," Mana murmured.

"Oh, Mana, don't die! Please don't die! You got hit because of me! I'm sorry, just please-"

Mana Walker used the last of his stregnth to grasp Allen's gloved left wrist. He knew what was under the thick fabric- a twisted, unmoving deformity of an arm that would certainly cast Allen as an outsider if it was exposed. It was the reason why his parents had abandoned him, the reason for his cruel fate, and partly the reason why Mana had taken in the boy as a small toddler. Because no one else would have.

"Allen, listen to me," Mana said firmly. "Until life runs out of you, keep walking. Keep walking until the day you die!"

"Mana! Don't go!" Tears streamed down the child's dirty face.

"Keep . . . Walking . . ."

Mana's grip loosened, and he died.

Allen sobbed. "Mana! Don't leave me! I need you!"

Mana was still, his body limp, but Allen didn't want to believe that he was dead. He couldn't be, not Mana, the most kindest and loving and sweetest person he'd ever known. Who could he go to now?

Allen had never seen death before. It frightened him. He hated it. He wanted to get rid of it. He thought God was just the meanest person in the universe to take Mana away from him. Mana didn't deserve to die. He was the best dad in the world.

And now he was gone. Allen didn't know what to do. All he could do was stare impassively at the setting sun sinking lower and lower into the horizon, its rays casting a glare overlooking the bustling evening streets of the near city of London.

He did not care about anything. All he wanted was for Mana to be back . . . and for that, he'd do anything. Anything at all.

Allen had no idea how simple that would be, to gain back his father's life. Nor did he know that all gains in life had consequences.


	2. Earl of the Millenium

2. Earl of the Millenium

It seemed as if ages had passed since Mana's death. Allen had sat quietly overlooking Mana's funeral service held in the tiny, local chapel. Only a few people had attended, but Allen had tried his best to stare expressionlessly as not to appear a helpless, bawling, nuisance. He had the small, foolish hope that perhaps, one of Mana's friends (Mana had no known living family) might sympathize him and take him in as their own child. But not one did. Allen watched them exit the church and waved at them as they went. Some waved akwardly back. Some stared at him. Most walked away quickly, not looking at him. When Allen realized everyone had gone and not one person had approached him, he ran from the burial and burst into tears.

Now he had nowhere to go except live homeless on the streets of Chelsea, searching for food. It was much like before, before Mana, except so much lonelier. He'd known loneliness before, but it was nothing compared to now- a cold, hard emptiness at the pit of his stomach that ached and raged all day and night without so much as a hug or whisper of reassurance for a cure.

"It's Allen Walker. The poor little circus freak whose sick clown father died."

Allen looked up. Hovering over him were the faces of several of the mean kids who hung around the streets of Chelsea. They were all in their preteens, common street kids not any higher than Allen himself, excluding age. Still, they acted as if they were heirs to lords, snooty and selfish. Their expressions were sneer, menacing.

"Don't say that about Mana! Or else!" Allen threatened. He winced. He wasn't convincing this gang, let alone, himself.

One of them made a motion as if to harm him. He flinched, and fell to the hard stone beneath. They snickered, and their voices began to torment him to the very near degree of insanity.

"No one's left to love you now, Allen," one began.

"You can't find a family with that ugly deformity of an arm," hissed another.

"You against the world. Alone, forever," a kid added.

"He would've abandoned you sooner or later."

And so on:

"No one desires you."

"You're a filthy little animal."

"You'll die, Allen."

"Mana must be happy in heaven to have you off his back."

Allen wiped tears off his cheeks with his mittened hand.

"He never loved you," they all jeered.

"Stop it! Let me be!" Allen cried. He jumped to his feet and pushed one of them away and began to run off. He went off like the wind, the rush of the air pressing against his chest, panting to the rhythym of his pumping legs. He felt the urge to glance back, but he did not.

Allen fled to the graveyard. He collapsed at Mana Walker's grave, and cried all over again. He was confused, and lonely. He had depended on Mana for so much. He had been his only family, and had died protecting him. Allen had been greatly indebted to him. But now Mana was gone, and it was Allen's fault completely.

"You want me to revive Mana Walker?" a too sugary-sweet voice suggested from above Allen.

Allen lifted his head up and saw the large form of an

uncanny gentleman in a top hat and yellow jacket. His tall face was grotesque and unreal, with a pair of unwelcoming amber eyes that were scary enough to be six instead of two. A long nose, a pointed chin, and a wide, fake grin that seemed permanently forced onto his face completed his features. His skin was grey-toned; he was fat.

Allen ignored the strange man's unappealingness. "You can . . . do that?" His heart swelled.

"Of course," the man said in his husky voice, dripping honey. "All you have to do is call out to Mana's soul from that detestable God, and he'll come back!"

Allen eyed the creepy man. His expression was the same: false, eerie glee. The only things that moved on his face were his eyes, searching the boy hungrily for an answer.

Allen believed him. "Yes!" he cried. "Bring Mana back!"

A skeleton- a set of fake human bones appeared dissasembled in front of him. Allen didn't quite understand, but evidently the strange man did. He ordered Allen to call his father's name.

Allen felt an emotion at the pit of his stomach, but it wasn't loneliness. Was it fear? Guilt? No! Allen had to do it. He didn't know what his instincts were telling him, but he had to save Mana, bring him back.

"Well, go on child!" the strange man encouraged. "You want to revive your father as soon as possible, eh?"

YES. Yes, he did.

He took a deep and shaky breath in. He closed his eyes, and his heart took a leap. Mana, Allen thought desperately, please be saved. Please.

"MAAAAAAAAAANAAAAAAAH!!!"

he screamed.

A bolt of neon violet lightning struck the lifeless manaquinn in front of Allen. He shielded his eyes in fear that they might burn if he so much as glanced.

When he felt it safe to look, Allen uncovered his eyes.


	3. His Second Death

3. His Second Death

The dissasembled bones were now one, a complete dummy. The once dead skeleton was mobile. As it approached him, Allen spotted the letters "MANA" etched onto the skull in glowing red script. A star was imprinted above the word.

Allen sensed that this WAS his father. Mana Walker was a walking skeleton with a soul, but Allen didn't care. Mana was back. What had once been reality was now only a nightmare, haunting, yet only a dream. Nothing but a dream . . .

"Al . . . len . . ." Mana croaked.

"Mana," muttered Allen, tears of happiness and relief running down his cheeks.

He didn't know what he'd created. He didn't know what an akuma was. He didn't know this strange man was a very evil person called the Millenium Earl who was trying to drive the world to corruption step by step. He didn't know the demon he had brought back to life was not the same Mana that Allen knew as his father.

"Go on, Mana," the man known as the Earl said. "Do what you must."

Allen didn't pay him any mind.

"Al . . . en . . . Walker. How . . ."

The Earl's eyes dug into Allen like a cat stalking prey. The boy observed Mana with wide eyes.

"How . . . dare you! You turned me into an Akuma!"

Allen retreated. A look of disbelief crossed his face, and before he could express his confusion, Mana Walker the akuma raised a clawlike hand and sliced through the boy's left eye. Allen screamed out in agony. Dark blood poured down one cheek.

The Earl cackled maliciously, showing Allen that he was obviously no ally in any way. "Kill him, kill him, yes, kill him!" he chanted. "Then use his body for your own and help me destroy the Earth!"

"ALLEN! I curse you Allen!" Mana yelled.

"My eye! It's burning!" Allen screeched, his face a mask of excrutiating pain and stained with tears.

Then . . . IT happened.

Instantly, Allen's deformed arm began to change. It grew rapidly and expanded, bursting through the fabric of his sleeve and his worn, concealing mitten. Allen gazed in horror as it morphed into a large, sleek, mechanical-looking claw that was glowing green and whipping around maniaclly. Its fingers crept quickly toward Mana, dragging poor Allen along with it. He tried to control his transformed limb, but it had a will of its own. Allen was powerless as his arm pulled him along.

Suddenly, Allen knew Mana was about to die again. Except it would be worse this time. Now, he'd be slaughtered by his own son's mysterious deformed hand.

"STOP! Don't do this to Mana!" Allen pleaded. "Oh no, run, Dad, RUN!"

His arm prepared to attack, its fingers outstretched.

"Allen . . . I- I love you. Now destroy me," he heard Mana say.

"Don't leave again . . ." Allen sobbed. He looked up into the face of his father. He could see Mana's soul inside the demon body through the damaged vison of his left eye.

His claw captured the demon, and he was gone, killed a second time.

Allen was alone in the world, feeling even more horrible than he had before. And it left him with a left eye that could the souls in the akuma.


	4. Exorcist Meeting Cross Marian

4. Exorcist~ Meeting Cross Marian

A world without Mana was a cruel one indeed.

A God that allowed Mana to die was just as cruel.

Allen felt cruelest of all for letting Mana be killed again and being too weak to prevent it. Mana had cursed him. That was all the evidence Allen needed to believe that Mana Walker truly hated his son.

The Earl of the Millenium had mysteriosly vanished. Allen was hardly aware of this, but would one day ponder why that evil creation hadn't killed him right then and there, when he was so helpless.

So there Allen sat, his eye bloody and glowing red from the new curse, his hair turned silvery- white somehow. He was alone, again. He hadn't ceased crying since Mana had appeared, but the cause had altered in only a matter of minutes.

"There is no freedom for the soul within an akuma."

Allen didn't bother to look up and see who was speaking, but if he had, he would have seen a tall, very handsome man, with long scarlett hair and gold-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in extravagant black robes trimmed with bronze. The right side of his face was hidden with the jagged piece of a white mask, and a cigar poked out of the side of his mouth. A stream of of smoke cascaded from the tip. The stranger crouched down next to Allen.

"You're trapped inside of it for all eternity, and you become the Millenium Earl's pawn," the man continued. Allen could feel the man pressing him to respond, but the story he longed to tell- even to a complete stranger- remained untold.

"The only way to help it is to destroy it."

Allen ignored him still.

"A parasitic-type . . . being born with an anti-demon weapon. What a destiny God has been bestowed upon you."

Allen gazed up at last. He began to explain how little he cared for the God who had taken Mana away and then brought him back, only to curse Allen for being bad, for making him into a . . . what? Aku- something?

Then he stopped talking, the words the stranger was saying finally sinking in. He was talking about Mana, his soul, turned into this creature everyone seemed to be talking to him about called an akuma.

"Young man," the man began in a low voice with a hint of edge to it. Allen wiped his blotchy cheeks and looked questioningly up into the man's eyes. They were shining with what Allen assumed to be a feeling of adventure. Little did he know what seemingly inpossible ideas truly ran through his mind.

"How would you like to be . . . an exorcist?"

Allen Walker's training as an exorcist with the Marshall, Cross Marian began after that. He didn't know what he'd gotten himself into. He hoped his decision would be for the best.


End file.
